D3hoops.com Daily Dose

The UW-Platteville men’s and women’s basketball teams are overseas. They will check in with Division III basketball fans from time to time. Jeff Skemp is our correspondent.

The third day of the trip started with a morning breakfast and free time for the team to shop, but mainly to catch up on sleep. At 11:45 a.m. the men’s team took a tour of Trinity College, which holds the famous Book of Kells. Following the short tour we had more free time to walk the city of Dublin on our own, and do more souvenir shopping. We came together at 2:30 for a team pregame meal and left for the basketball arena at 3:30 to play the Irish National 21 Under team.

The men played first and struggled during the first quarter but continued to keep playing hard and got a spark from the bench into the second period as the Pioneers started to pull away. The third period saw the Pioneers continue their dominance, and the fourth quarter was more of the same as UWP won 81-29. Mike Shaw led all scorers with 22 points and Charlie Lohoff was the only other player in double figures with 10 points. Curt Hanson had 9 and Jeff Skemp 7 points. Eleven of the 15 players for the Pioneers scored in the game as there was a balanced attack. The team was able to eat pizza supported by people on the trip, and will spend their last, hopefully memorable, night together in Dublin.

The Pioneers will leave Dublin tomorrow (Thursday) and move onto Killarney for three days. There they will continue touring as well as play another game.

The UWP women followed the men’s win with a 71-59 victory against the Irish U21 team. Lisa Grantman had 18 points and Megan Guernsey scored 14.

Oglethorpe’s men’s basketball team is on a nine-day trip to Europe. They will check in with Division III basketball fans from time to time. Wade Weldon is our correspondent.

Bon Giorno from Rome! Then Oglethorpe men’s basketball departed to Rome at 7:10 am on Friday. Before our departure we played our final game in France against a local semi-pro team. We opened up with a 12-0 lead and their coach called a time out within the first three minutes of the game in attempt to dwindle our fire. We continued to move the ball as a team and cruised to a 94-69 victory. We hit 14 three’s and continued our undefeated streak on foreign soil.

After the victory, we had a quick three hour nap before heading to the airport for our 7:10 a.m. flight to Rome. We landed in Rome half asleep, and hit the ground running with a three hour bus tour of the city. Luckily, we had free time after the tour and caught about a three hour nap before our final game in Rome on Friday night.

Once again, we opened up hot despite the tired legs. We started the game with a 10-0 lead and finished with a 102-76 victory. The speed of our offense and our zone press was hard for the local team to adjust to. The 24 second shot clock caused our opponent to panic and turn the ball over. After the victory, the Italian fans and kids were very excited to meet us and we exchanged our jerseys and other paraphernalia with their home team. After a short bus ride back to our hotel, the Petrels celebrated our 3-0 winning streak with a four-course, local, Italian meal.

Today we woke up after a rejuvenating 8 hours of sleep and took the metro to the Colosseum and the Roman Forum. It was amazing to see the ancient Roman architecture and wonder how it would be to compete as a gladiator in the Colosseum. After touring the Colosseum, we went to the Roman Forum and walked around and took great pictures of the city skyline.

You always hear about the pick-pockets in the Roman metro and today we experienced it first hand. One of our chaperons had 40 euros taken out of his fanny pack by a team of local thieves including a baby as a decoy. From now on, we will keep a closer eye on our belongings and watch out for gypsies trying to make a living off American tourists.

Today we dined at a local pizzeria near our hotel. The team enjoyed fresh mozzarella, mussels from Naples, and authentic Italian pizza. Tomorrow, we are taking a day trip to explore the beautiful city of Florence. I will update you the next time I find an internet cafe. Ciao.

Well — we did it! What a roller-coaster season for our program, our team and myself. The 2008 NCAA Division III men’s basketball national champions are the Washington University in St. Louis Bears — now that’s got a nice ring to it.

The weekend in Salem was a very memorable one. It was a little different the second time around (after having been there a year ago) because we were a little more immune to the media, the large arena and the atmosphere. Last year we may have been a little in awe of the entire situation before having even played our games. This year it seemed as if the team had a much more businesslike attitude and was able to turn on the focus when we needed to turn it on.

The people of Salem, the NCAA, and the ODAC really run a great show out there. After arriving Wednesday, each team does some community service on Thursday before practices. We visited a V.A. hospital, which was very neat. Immediately following that we went to a luncheon to honor Troy Ruths for his Jostens Award acceptance. It was SO special for our entire team to be at the presentation. Following that we had a few hours of downtime at the hotel before heading back to the Civic Center for practice. We practiced, and then stayed at the Civic Center for the annual banquet that night with all the teams.

The banquet is an opening ceremonies-esque dinner and reception for all the student-athletes. It features a coach and player speaking representing each team in addition to a pretty neat highlight video about each team’s road to the final four — which definitely gets the players ready to compete. The ODAC commissioner, Brad Bankston, gave my blog a nice mention during his speech — so thanks Brad, and thanks for helping put together such a great experience in Salem.

Friday features a little more relaxation and prep for Friday night’s games. After a morning shoot-around, most of us relaxed around the hotel while watching the Division I games. In the hotel they have a “Student-Athlete Lounge” featuring a couple of big screen TVs, unlimited water, Gatorades and snacks, and PS3’s for all the athletes to use during the day. It’s a very nice touch that all the players greatly appreciate.

After all the hoopla, it was finally time to play some basketball. Hope was a very talented team and we knew that coming into the game. Having played them last year, we had a good feel for their style and it definitely benefited us. The first half was pretty back and forth, but in the second half our team put on one of the better shows I’ve ever seen. Scoring 57 points in a half against a very good defensive team was borderline ridiculous. It was the start to our nearly flawless three halves of basketball. Aaron Thompson took over for a big stretch and following his jabs, Troy had three-point play after three-point play to deliver the knockout punch.

Now had I been playing in the semifinal, bed time would’ve been in the immediate future following the game, however, I was a coach, and lucky for me — I was assigned Amherst on the Monday of the prior week as my team to scout going into the weekend, while one of our other assistant coaches took Ursinus. I had watched three of Amherst’s games on DVD in addition to their semifinal game picking up on their sets and play-calls, offensive and defensive tendencies, all in addition to some individual personnel scouting. So instead of going to sleep, I was up until after 2 a.m. in Coach Whittle’s room with my “scouting cap” on.

It was pretty neat that Amherst was the first scouting report I’ve been the one to actually hand-write the plays. It meant a lot the coaches trusted me to carry that load for the national championship game. I now know how truly frustrating it is for a coach to be calling out a play from the bench during a game while yelling and yelling to a player on the floor that a back-door is coming, but he still gets burned for a layup.

Anyway, Saturday night we played by far our best game of the season. We frustrated them with our defense and we hit shot after shot on offense. People can say maybe we got lucky shooting so well in the National Championship game — but the bottom line is we were taking GREAT shots, and that’s all you can ask for. As the final buzzer went off it was complete chaos and as I ran out to center court to celebrate and jump with my teammates my leg definitely did not feel hurt!

I can’t count how many friends, player’s parents, professors, etc., have come up to me and expressed congratulations but carried on to say how “bittersweet” it had to have been for me watching from the bench as opposed to being on the court.

The championship wasn’t bittersweet. It was really sweet.

This championship was the first for the program here and wasn’t won just by the six guys that played more than 10 minutes in Saturday night’s 22-point win. It was won by each one of the players that have been here during Coach Edwards’ 27 years. It was won by every fan that has ever come out to support the program. It was won by all the coaches that have ever put time in to making the program better. It was won by each player’s parents that have trusted to send their kid to the University. It was won by every sports information director we’ve ever had here, from people like Mike Wolf, the school’s first, that left his job at Northwestern for the weekend to come to Salem, to our current SID Chris Mitchell. It was won by people like Justin Carroll, the Dean of Students, Mark Wrighton, the chancellor here at Washington University, and our athletic director John Schael, for all the support they’ve given the program over the years. It was won by the three fan buses of students that traveled 24 hours on the weekend to get to Salem to get to the games.

Maybe I didn’t play minutes in the final game, but I still won that championship — and celebrating that wasn’t bittersweet, it was really sweet.

The after-party was fantastic at the hotel. I enjoyed talking with D3hoops.com posters Walzy31 and Marty Peretz about future business plans. I had a blast talking smack about the green-weenies to Titan Q and talking with Pat Coleman and D-Mac. We got to mingle with a few Ursinus parents and Amherst players and coaches, which added to the experience. But most of all it was just great to sit back with the coaches, my teammates and their families and enjoy what had just happened.

The entire experience was a ton of motivation for next year — to get back there and do it again. My first day freshman year at Wash U we had convocation, a welcoming with everyone in the class of 2009 and their families, in our Fieldhouse. Looking up at the four women’s basketball and eight women’s volleyball national championships, Tyler Nading, who I had known for less than 24 hours, and I made a pact that we’d hang our program’s first banner before we graduated. Well Tyler, we did it… Now let’s make it the first of many.

Take care,
Sean

P.S. Thank you to Pat for giving me the opportunity to blog this season. It has been both therapeutic and enjoyable. As for doing it again next season — a contract extension is still in the works and I’m not allowed to talk about it without my agent’s permission.

As the season went along we realized that we would have a chance to go far in the NCAA tournament but we decided to have a back up plan just in case. We, as in 7 upperclassmen on the team, thought that Cocoa Beach would be a good vacation spot. We found a huge beautiful house right on the beach. But once the NCAA tournament started we just all knew that our Cocoa Beach getaway was probably not going to happen. Of course going to the final four is way better then the beach. We really wanted to go to Michigan anyways
With the game coming to an end we knew our alternate spring break plans were not needed. Being able to go as far as we can in the NCAA tournament is what we have all dreamed about and have worked our butts off for. To be able to go to the Final Four is such a great chance especially since many people did not think we would make it this far! We feel so fortunate to be one of the four teams that are still in season. Michigan is going to be a great way to spend our Spring Break!

As I’ve been sitting out I have found that people, friends, or fans have approached me before and after games with two different attitudes. The first is the parent or fan saying “how sorry they feel for me”, “how much they wish I could be out on the court and can’t wait until next year” or asking me about rehab — all of which is very nice and greatly appreciated. Then there is the other fan… this fan, very rare, asks “in sitting out and spending time viewing the game from a different angle — what have you learned?”

Saturday night I learned more than I had all year.

We were miserable in the first half. We underestimated Millsaps’ athleticism and how tough they would make it for us to score.

We trailed 27-18 at halftime shooting 2-11 from 3, 26 percent from the field, while having five assists compared to our 11 turnovers. We were down nine and in a weird way I felt lucky we were only down that much considering how we played.

What does a coach do when his team is on the ropes, his season on the line and his players are starting to lose belief in themselves and each other? This is where I learned the lesson.

At halftime as the coaches met privately before going into meet with the players, Coach Edwards wasn’t frantically scrambling X’s and O’s trying to figure out a way for us to score. He wasn’t cursing out players for underperforming in a game where a trip back to Salem was on the line. Instead, he brought up a game six weeks ago at Skibo Gymnasium in Pittsburgh, Pa., against Carnegie Mellon.

Wait, Coach, that was the beginning of February against the fifth-place team in our conference in front of a generously stated 422 people — what on Earth does that have to do with playing against Millsaps (28-3) in front of a noisy WU Field House to get to the final four?

Well, we played Carnegie Mellon the Sunday morning after an epic overtime loss at Rochester. The game against Rochester was a draining, emotion filled, over-time effort which wore us down. With tired legs and exhausted minds, we sat in the locker room trailing Mellon by 10 at halftime — we shot the ball poorly, turned it over, and looked as sloppy as we did during the first half against Millsaps. After halftime, we let the wear take over our minds and got blown out. Losing 86-55 may have been generous as we were down 37 points in the second half.

Going into the locker room at halftime to talk with 15 players questioning themselves, Coach Edwards laid it out very clearly saying “We’ve been here before.” He reminded them of the Carnegie Mellon game. He said our draining game against Rochester was exactly like our strenuous game with Buena Vista the previous night. During the first half of tonight’s game not only were our legs tired, but our minds were tired. Instead of going out and playing a second half like we did against Carnegie Mellon (getting outscored 48-27), we had the opportunity to learn from the regular season and a chance to play a second-half and conquer the demons taking over our minds. We had 20 minutes to show how we had grown this season and learned from our experiences.

After halftime we were a different team. We had energy on both ends of the floor. We went on a 17-2 run to open the half and gave Millsaps fits with our defense. We took better care of the ball, for the most part, and hit a few timely shots while doing what we do best — getting it into Troy. I don’t know if it was exactly Coach’s comparison at halftime that turned it around, but it sure seemed like it.

Maybe he pointed out one or two small adjustments on a few plays during the locker room talk, but what I learned is that at this part of the season it isn’t about X’s and O’s — that’s what the entire regular season was for. As a coach and as a player I learned March is different. It’s really about mental coaching and both player’s and coaches being mentally strong enough to withstand the doubt that they can’t do it. Sure teams need to be prepared for what they’ll see from opposing teams and individuals, but a team’s mindset is truly what’s most important to its success. If we would have let the tiredness take over our minds I’m sure the Millsaps second half could’ve been similar to the second half at Carnegie Mellon — but Coach helped us realize if we stayed mentally strong, we could survive and advance to the Final Four.

Obviously I would rather be playing than sitting on the bench this upcoming weekend but I can’t tell you how excited I really am to go back to Salem. As a coach, player, or fan there is no better place to celebrate Division III Men’s Basketball. The people of Salem truly take pride in putting together a great weekend and making all participants feel special. Congratulations to all the teams that have made it this far, I look forward to watching some great basketball in the coming days. Please come introduce yourself in Salem, I look forward to soaking up this weekend and hopefully enjoying our program’s first ever (with a few more to come in the next couple years…?) National Championship.

Take care,
Sean

P.S. Congratulations to my buddy Troy on the Jostens Trophy. It is very well deserved and I couldn’t be happier for him. I couldn’t think of anyone that represents our program better on and off the court.